5 Budget-Friendly Vegan Breakfast Ideas for Under $1

Hey everyone, it's Caitlin and welcome to another video. In this video, I'm going to show you how you can make five easy vegan breakfasts for under $1 each. This video is part of my five under five video series in which I go to the grocery store and spend less than $25 in total on some groceries and see what meals I can make for you. I have already filmed some comfort food inspired, Italian inspired, and Mexican inspired videos in this series. I'll link those below if you wanna check them out. But I realized we hadn't had any sweet recipes yet, so I thought breakfast would be a good place to start with some sweet food. But don't worry, if you like savory breakfast, I got you covered too. Luckily for us, breakfast food is pretty dang affordable and honestly, I got a decent amount of food and it's very versatile too. I probably could've come up with 10 recipes in total for you guys, but that would've taken forever to film and edit, so I just stuck with five. But anyways, I went to Aldi to get all of my groceries and here is what I got. I got a huge carton of quick oats, some bananas, a jar of peanut butter, a bag of baby spinach, a jar of salsa, and some frozen hash browns. Also, there are a few items that I already had in my pantry and I didn't want to go out and buy more food, because I thought that would personally be wasteful. However, I did go to the grocery store and price check these items, which include a can of black beans, a package of tortillas, and some cocoa or cacao powder. Now that I have shown you everything I purchased, let's get on to the actual recipes. First things first, we're going to make some easy banana oatmeal cookies and the total cost per serving for this recipe is 41 cents. So you're going to need a medium bowl and you're going to need one ripe banana. And like every vegan says, make sure there are brown spots on your banana, because that means that it is sweeter, but you're just going to break the banana up with your hands into smaller chunks. This makes it a little bit easier to mash. So just take a fork and mash it up. And I like to mash it flat with a fork, but then I also like to stir it. I feel like this helps to break up some of the fibers a little bit more. Next, we're going to add in our peanut butter. If you don't have peanut butter, you can use another nut or seed butter, or if you have a nut allergy, you can use sunflower seed butter. But either way, you're just going to mix this in with the banana. And then once that is an even texture, we're going to add in our quick oats. You can use rolled oats too, but I would probably recommend quick oats. And then if you have baking powder in your pantry, you can add it in. It is optional, but it will help make the cookies a little bit more fluffy. So then we're just going to mix everything together until you have a evenly incorporated dough. And you're going to place your cookies on a baking tray. It helps to have your hands a little bit wet for this part. And mine made six cookies in total. Just going to pop those into the oven. And then once they're finished, they'll look a little bit something like this, nice and golden brown. Then you can serve them up on a plate, if you so desire, and enjoy. I love these because they're great for an on-the-go breakfast too. Next, we're going to make some peanut butter banana sushi. I guess you could also call it a pinwheel, but this costs 43 cents per serving. So this one is pretty easy. My tortillas were small, so I layered two of them. But if you have big tortillas, you could just use one. We're just going to spread your nut butter across the bottom of the tortillas. And if peanut butter is expensive where you live, you could also substitute it using jelly or jam. That's usually more affordable and more accessible for everyone. Then we're just going to add our banana into the center of it and roll it up, kind of like a burrito, kind of like a sushi. But this is smaller like sushi, so I like to call it sweet sushi. Say sushi five times fast. That's really hard. Anyways, we're just going to then take a knife and cut this into smaller pieces. If you're taking this on the go, I guess you don't have to cut it either. It might be easier for transporting it. But once you're finished, you would have your little banana sushi pieces. And you have some ugly ends, but you should still eat those too because taste is more important. This recipe is also super customizable. You could add in some cinnamon, some chocolate chips, granola, whatever you have on hand. Next, this wouldn't be a vegan breakfast recipe video if I didn't show you guys how to make an ice cream. So this recipe only costs 49 cents per serving. And first, we're going to take some bananas. You want to make sure, again, that your bananas are ripe and spotty. Otherwise, the final nice cream product isn't going to be as sweet. So you're going to break up your bananas. I would recommend three to five for a breakfast serving. I just used three. And you're going to pop these in a freezer safe bag. Mine is a reusable one, which I would totally recommend. It should reduce your waste. And you're going to pop them in the freezer until they are frozen. And then once they're frozen, which is probably the next day or whenever you want ice cream, you can put them in a food processor or a high-speed blender, and then cover it up and blend it. And the first time you blend it or pulse it, you're just going to pulse it until you have tiny sort of banana pieces, like you can see here. And then you're just going to push down the sides, add in some cocoa powder or cacao powder for our chocolate flavor, along with a tiny, tiny splash of water. You don't want to use that much water. You want to use as little as possible because it will make your banana ice cream a lot more thick. So you're just going to repeat this process until you have this final product. And it is a very thick, almost soft-serve-like chocolate banana ice cream. You could also make this with berries. You could add different spices in with it. It's very versatile and very budget-friendly. And I mean, who wouldn't want to eat something that looks like this for breakfast? It's like a healthy Wendy's Frosty, and it's affordable too. Guys, it's so good. Add some granola, it makes it even better. All right, now we're going to move on to savory. So first we're going to start with some black bean tacos. And eggs aren't vegan, so we're having beans for breakfast. And this costs 91 cents per serving. This recipe is very simple, though. You're going to use as many tortillas as you would like. I'm using two because mine were kind of small. You could also make this into a burrito. Then you're just going to place a small handful of the fresh baby spinach into each of the tacos. I used the raw spinach, but you could also cook it down if you want to, too. I just liked the extra crunch that it brought. And then we're going to use about half of a can of black beans. I drained the beans and then rinsed them because this helps with digestion. And I'm using half the can, like I said, and just divided it evenly between the two tacos. And then finally, I topped it with some fresh salsa to give it a little bit more flavor. And if you have different veggies in your fridge, you could add them in as well. You could add hot sauce or nutritional yeast. Again, this recipe's pretty versatile. Either way, it's still a good breakfast option. And then last but not least, we're going to be making some hash browns, and this recipe costs 92 cents per serving. So to make our hash browns, we're going to take about three to four cups of the frozen potatoes, and we're going to add some salt to them as well as some pepper. I would definitely recommend you add salt. I feel like potatoes taste kind of bland if you don't add salt. Then we're just going to mix that together. You can use a fork, but I just felt like using my hands. And then I added in a little bit of spinach because I had some on hand, and you know, extra veggies, extra health. Then you're just going to pour this into the pan and spread it out. So when I first made this recipe, I tested it without using any oil, and you're just going to cook the potatoes on a low heat for about 10 minutes or so, and you're not going to do anything to the pan. You're not going to touch the potatoes. You're just going to leave it alone, drink some water, get hydrated, do something else in the meantime. Then you can cut the hash browns into four even segments, and you can flip it over with your spatula, and then you're going to cook this for another 10 to 15 minutes. So this recipe does take a little bit of time, but the potatoes do get golden and crunchy eventually. It takes some patience, but in my opinion, it is worth it. And then I just served it with some salsa for some extra flavor. I did want to be a good recipe developer for you guys, so I tested this recipe using oil as well, and I did the same thing, but the potatoes in the pan, I still had to let them sit for about 10 to 12 minutes, and then I flipped them, and honestly, with a little bit of oil, I didn't see that much of a difference in the goldenness and crispiness of the potatoes, so I added more oil to them. They got a little bit more crispy, but honestly, if you want really, really crispy potatoes like you see here, you have to add a lot of oil to them. And at this point, I don't think this is the healthiest breakfast option, but it's still a budget-friendly breakfast option, and it still tastes good, so you do you, boo. And those are my five easy vegan breakfast ideas for under $1 or less. Obviously, grocery prices and availability are going to vary a little depending on where you live, but I feel like most of the ingredients that I used are pretty easily accessible, and you could also mix things up if you have extra things in your pantry, like some berries or some spices, like cinnamon or vanilla extract. I feel like breakfast is pretty versatile, and if you have these basic recipes under your belt, you can keep yourself entertained with your breakfast for a very long time, and you're not gonna get sick of it. Be sure to let me know in the comments below which one of these recipes was your favorite and which one you want to try out first, or you can let me know what your favorite vegan breakfast recipe is, and that way, we give each other more tips and inspiration. Also, if this is the first time that you're seeing one of my videos and you like what you see here, feel free to hit that little subscribe button right down there. I post two new videos every single week, and they range from budget-friendly recipes to grocery hauls to vlogs, but lots of yummy vegan foods, so if that sounds interesting to you, you know what to do. And for everyone else, and for you new people, too, thank you all so, so much for watching my video. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day, whatever time of day it is for you, and I hope to see you in the next one. Bye.